The First One
by Son of Malice
Summary: A crossover exploring the idea that Apocalypse is actually the Emperor in the 40k universe.


-Prelude-

I have lived for thousands of years, since the Pharaohs walked the wastes. I was born of necessity, the first of a great new species that, in time, would come into its own and take its place amongst the stars. I struck down the oppressors of my people, waged war across the world with one faction or another, ever seeking the perfection of mankind. I used my powers to assume the guise of gods, daemons, and great heroes, all to guide and inspire the world and nudge them closer to my vision. Some accepted what I taught, others, inevitably, fought against me. They thought themselves to be champions of freedom and diversity but all their actions resulted in was anarchy….Chaos.

That was the past though. My enemies are long since dead and new, more ethereal forces have risen to challenge the power of mankind. In the wake of nuclear wars and holocausts the likes of which the universe has rarely seen the old order of Earth was torn down. Mutates and freaks of every description, long integrated within society, were exposed as parasitic and destructive. I know this better than any for I was the first of them. I watched it happen, hidden as I was from the prying eyes of the world. I could not intervene as I had in the past, it would only have united the unclean and the weak against the coming of my final effort to save our species. It is an axiom that only the strong survive and the universe is a harsh one indeed.

Earth burned. The seas evaporated. Radiation scarred man and nature alike. All should have ended but for my forethought. A word here, a nudge there, the subtle machinations I have come to prefer to the bluntness that is to come, and over a few hundred years before the end of this world I shifted the fate of our shared races. The children of man scattered throughout the galaxy, cast away from the bosom of their homeworld to find new homes and new lives. They are strong branches from the tree of humanity grafted onto alien worlds. Yet, as I say, the strong survive. Though the earth was bloated and corrupt for a time the interstellar empire I had instigated seemed to offer a hope for the future. Perhaps it would indeed be possible for them to take up the mantle I had set out for them without revealing myself.

I say this idly as I have already walked this future, this best chance for mankind is in me. I here the shuddering blasts as the cradle of humanity burns in endless wars. Those colonists now lie abandoned to grow without aid. Good. It will harden them for my coming. I smell the beginnings of an endless war and I need soldiers to fight. All throughout the galaxy strange alien beings prowl, some ancient and unknowable, others tangible and all too predictable. If we are to survive it must be as a united race against the horrors that lurk in the hearts of men. I have seen them, I have even fought them. Eldritch beings of the most malevolent kind, feeding upon the psychic footprints of all sentient life. Mankind, for whatever reason, echoes loudly within the immaterial and these great evils have turned their infinite hate and spite towards the undoing of all human life.

I will not allow this. The cost will be great, uncountable for there can be no true end to these beings except in the farthest future when man and psychic can stand united together. That time is far distant. Yet I plan for it still. Some, in the past, have called me a monster, a dictator, even a destroyer. They were limited by their understanding of the universe and it was impossible to enlighten them, so enraptured as they were by slogans of freedom and choice. There can be no freedom without consequence, no choice without cost. I know the cost, they did not. It does me no pleasure to do as I must yet I am firm in my resolve and nothing shall shake it.

Already my great work is in progress. As fools rain death down on our homeworld, as countless millions across the stars are trapped upon their new planets, I labor still for my kind. After millennia of research and testing I am at last ready to create my masterpiece. Twenty beings, generals for the great war, geneforged by my own hands. Each carries some of my DNA yet each has been further altered utilizing elements from fallen foes and friends alike. Immense psychic talent, heightened senses and healing, instinctive knowledge of technology, immense strength...I give them the best of all gifts and tailor them to a purpose.

From these paragons I already have templated lesser versions, grafts that can be placed upon young males and transform ordinary into extraordinary. If the Twenty are to be generals then they shall have legios to march at their command. They are my angels of death, the point of the spear, the tip of the sword. Long have alien races had cause to fear man and now, at last, we shall show them why. At the vanguard my genechildren shall lead their own genechildren in a tempest of fire and fury. All shall fall before them until, at long last, the galaxy is won and man stands triumphant over all foes.

And then, after we are secure, I will enact the painfully slow progress of protecting my domain. I shall create stable travel through the space between the immaterial and material. I shall guide the development of the many emerging psychics. I shall give over the protection of my Empire to my sons and they shall be as the great kings of old who owed me loyalty, each shall have their own fiefs and command vast swaths of space. I shall remain here, on Terra, and I shall continue my work until at last the darkness that opposes us is reduced to nothingness. My limbs ache at the thought of the effort to come, at the cost I and others shall pay, but the the strong MUST survive.

I have fashioned a new form for myself to enact this next phase of my plan. A figure of gold and radiant purity that shall inspire awe and evoke images of the splendor of fallen Rome itself. What matter the shape that I take you ask? The people must see in me the best of what they could be and, in doing so, strive towards it. The end justifies the deception. Or is it even a deception? I cannot even recall my "real" face. I have shifted so many times that if I ever had one it is lost to me now. It matters not now, all that matters is the plan. A new face, an old plan, and a new title to prosecute my purpose with I think. If I am to have an Empire I must then be the Emperor. Fitting. My old name is long since gone along with those few who heard whisper of it. The Emperor...it will serve but my true name is what I will always be: En Sabah Nur-The First One


End file.
